1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a pattern printing system and data processing method thereof. More particularly, the present invention relates to a pattern printing system suitable for printing patterns on printed circuit boards or data format rearrangement printing used in displays and the data processing method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Many fabricating methods have been developed to form microstructure on a substrate, for example, the circuit on a printed circuit board. As shown at the right side in FIG. 1, many complicated steps are included in a conventional circuit printing method, for example, forming a metal film on the substrate first so as to form a lower metal film layer first, then forming a photoresist layer on top with photoresist coating, and finally, removing the photoresist layer after exposing the photoresist layer with a mask so as to form a predetermined pattern. This fabricating method is very complicated, and since it requires very expensive machines and equipments, the fabricating cost is very high. Thus, inkjet printing technology is provided for forming microstructure on a substrate.
The industrial substrates to be printed usually have fixed style and the variation thereof is not as complex as general images, thus, the data processing method thereof can be different from the inkjet printing method of general images. Here print head rotating method can be used for inkjet printing fixed style substrate. In actual application, it is impossible to have different print head resolutions for different substrate resolutions, which will increase the manufacturing cost and will require the print head to be changed frequently so as to suit different substrates and support different image formats such as JEPG, TiFF, GERBER, etc. In addition, whether there is suitable print head might be a problem too.
In the conventional inkjet printing method for fabricating microstructure on substrate, for example, in the public case of PCT No. WO 02/099848, the system modules required for light weight coated pattern printing are disclosed, which include an alignment module, a service module, a drop diagnostics module, a motion module, and a piezoelectric micro-deposition (referred to thereinafter as PMD) head support module.
It is disclosed in this public case that the size of drops is controlled by waveform or drop number. To increase printing resolution, this disclosure also uses the print head rotating method. It is also mentioned in this patent application that to print different materials with only one system, a lot of time is spent on changing the print head support module and cleaning the print heads, so to improve this situation, more than one systems are used in the product line to reduce the time spent on changing print head support module and cleaning the print heads.
In addition, a method for improving the quality of light weight pattern printing is disclosed in the public cast of PCT No. WO 02/098576. Improved alignment module, higher resolution, and better droplet control are all necessary to obtain better quality in light weight pattern printing. This patent application is mostly about the method for improving the alignment module and controlling the waveforms of various nozzles with a drop diagnostics system so as to achieve better droplet control. The method of rotating PMD print head is used for increasing vertical resolution and the over-clocking method is used for increasing horizontal resolution. The over-clocking method is to increase the clock frequency of the operation after considering the width of the droplet and the horizontal and vertical moving speeds of the print head.
For example, FIG. 2A illustrates incorrect print head driving waveforms 370-1, 370-2 . . . 370-8, which results in the corresponding droplets 374-1, 374-2 . . . 374-8 having incorrect sizes or position shifts. For example, the droplet 374-4 is too small and has wrong position, and the droplet 374-4 is too large and also has wrong position. Correct print head driving waveforms 380-1, 380-2 . . . 380-8 and correct sizes and positions of droplets 384-1, 384-2 . . . 384-8 are obtained through rotating the PMD print head and adjusting the operation clock, as shown in FIG. 2B.
Moreover, a light weight pattern printing system is disclosed in the public case of PCT No. WO 02/050260, which can print particular pattern on the substrate, and can eliminate uneven density distribution caused by abnormal nozzle operations. According to this patent application, a mask for printing a particular pattern is created and the data of each printing flow is calculated according to the mask so as to eliminate uneven density distribution caused by abnormal nozzle operations. The pattern to be formed is illustrated in FIG. 3A, and the print head 50 in FIG. 3B prints droplets at predetermined positions in rows 206-1˜206-B according to nozzles 134-1˜134-n. According to the light weight pattern printing system disclosed in this invention, the print head 50 can print the desired pattern through several moves (as 210 and 240) according to a mask generated by a mask generation device, as shown in FIG. 3C.
None of the aforementioned conventional technologies provides a method for printing a pattern on the substrate correctly through an algorithm or a method for storing the rearranged print data into the memory in high-speed transmission so as to achieve synchronous firing.